I sat back on the stool and watched her for a second. I watched the way her shoulders finally dropped, and the way her eyes softened like she could breathe a lil’.
Then I stood up.
“I’mma set your flowers up,” I told her. “And I’mma leave you to your bath. You be in this bitch all damn night.”
Toni laughed, real this time. “Boy, get out.”
I walked out the bathroom with a grin, but my chest still felt heavy in that good way, like I did somethin’ right.
I went to the room and set the flowers in a vase where she could see them, then I placed the envelope right beside them, simple and clean, like a promise.
Then I stepped back and looked at it all.
It was a lot, but it wasn’t enough to erase what I done, and I knew that.
Still, I needed Toni to feel me tryin’ in a way she could touch.
She finally came out the bathroom later, wrapped in her robe, hair still up, her eyes softer.
She walked to the dresser, picked up the envelope, felt the weight of it, then glanced at me like she was embarrassed to be emotional.
“I’mma read it in a minute,” she said.
“You ain’t gotta read it right now,” I told her.
“Kay’Lo,” she said, and my name came out like a warnin’ and love at the same time. “Let me do what I wanna do.”
I lifted my hands. “A’ight, baby.”
She shook her head, then walked over to me and pressed her face into my chest.
I wrapped my arms around her, and she held onto me like she had been needin’ me to be this version of me for a long time.
“I see you,” she whispered.
That sentence almost took me out, ‘cause Toni didn’t say soft shit like this unless she mean it.
“I’m right here,” I murmured, kissin’ the top of her head.
She nodded, still holdin’ me, then pulled back just enough to look up at me.
“You better keep showin’ up like this,” she said, her eyes serious.
“I am,” I told her. “I’m not playin’ with you. I’m not playin’ with us.”
Toni stared at me for a second, then nodded like she was acceptin’ it, not fully trustin’ it yet, but acceptin’ it, and I understood that.
‘Cause trust don’t come back just ‘cause a nigga bought flowers. Trust come back when a nigga keep doin’ the work even when it ain’t romantic, even when it’s hard, and even when it’s boring.
I watched Toni walk back to the bed with the letter still in her hand, and I stood there for a second, listenin’ to the rain outside like it was still talkin’ to me.
I ain’t know what tomorrow was gon’ look like, and I ain’t know how fast Toni heart was gon’ heal from the shit I put it through, but I knew one thing for sure…
Tonight, I did right by my wife…
And I was hungry to keep doin’ that, ‘cause I wanted a family, and I wanted it with Toni, and I wanted it the rightway, not the chaotic way, not the painful way, but the way that made her feel safe enough to bring life into the world with me.
So, I stayed close, quiet, and present, ‘cause sometimes that was the loudest promise a nigga like me could make.
